Systems Change in Education: It Begins With Us

Ross Hall

Ross joined Ashoka in November 2014. Ross has founded and grown more than 20 businesses around the world. Over the past 8 years, he has focused his energy on building a ground-breaking education programme that aims to empower and incline young people to be changemakers – to make a better world.The ‘Better World’ programme aims to develop a sophisticated understanding of what quality of life actually is - and a deep knowledge of our inner powers that most determine our quality of life.The programme is currently live with 500,000 children in Zimbabwe and Tanzania, and is now being extended to Ghana, the UK and Mexico. This grew out of earlier projects that Ross conceived and led for Pearson (under the banner of Education for Economic and Social Development), which involved ministries, employers and educators evaluating and improving the effectiveness of education systems, institutions and programmes around the world.

Transforming education systems in this way must begin with us. We cannot create learning ecosystems if we are not modeling them ourselves.

That is why Ashoka’s approach to change involves organizing communities of Change Leaders into self-led teams that, like the learning ecosystems we want to create, plan systemically, communicate their progress, learn and improve together, and distribute leadership of system change widely. We are currently creating teams of Change Leaders around the world who are working to effect a wide range of critical transformations, all of which will align to the common purpose of equipping and inclining young people to create a better world.

Ashoka insight

Seeking to empower everyone to become equipped and inclined to live for the common good (what Ashoka calls “changemaking”) requires transforming existing education systems into new “learning ecosystems”— dynamic networks of educators and others who influence the experience of young people, working together to ensure that every young person develops the knowledge, skills, and inclinations that are prerequisites to creating a better world.

Ashoka’s approach to change involves organizing communities of Change Leaders into self-led teams that, like the learning ecosystems we want to create, plan systemically, communicate their progress, learn and improve together, and distribute leadership of system change widely.